Liberal Democrats peer’s ‘10 victims of sex harassment’

THE Lib Dem sexual misconduct scandal deepened last night after 10 women were said to have made accusations against Lord Rennard.

One alleged victim said she knew of nine other women who claim to have been groped and pestered

One alleged victim said she knew of nine other women who claim to have been groped and pestered by the party’s former chief executive.

She also revealed that the women had been referred to as “Rennard’s red-hot babes” within the party.

As the deepening scandal threatened to plunge the Lib Dems into crisis, Nick Clegg angrily accused reporters of acting like “self-appointed detectives” and said he would not give a “running commentary” on the scandal.

However, Lib Dem activists are understood to be increasingly uncomfortable with Mr Clegg’s response.

Benjamin Ramm, a former editor of The Liberal magazine, said he came across as “petulant and irritated, and prefers to adopt the role of the victim”. Mr Ramm said: “His temperament is ill-fitted to the act of contrition.”

Lord Rennard, an election adviser to a string of Lib Dem leaders, has been accused of targeting women at party events.

He repeated his denial of the allegations yesterday, insisting he had not received a single complaint about his behaviour in 27 years with the party.

Scotland Yard detectives discussed the allegations with senior Lib Dem officials last night in their investigation into whether “criminal activity” had taken place.

The latest allegations against Lord Rennard were made by a woman, identified only as Susan, on BBC Radio 4’s World At One show yesterday.

The woman, a former Lib Dem county councillor and prospective Parliamentary candidate, talked in detail about allegedly being pestered by the party’s former election chief in a hotel bar in Peterborough, Cambs.

She claimed the peer’s hand and leg repeatedly brushed against her leg and said he kept moving towards her as she tried to move away.

Susan said that she told him she was going to bed, the peer said: “Oh, I’ll walk up with you.”

“I went to the toilet, came back out and he was stood there at the bottom of the stairs waiting to walk me up,” she said. “We got to the top of stairs, and he suggested joining him in his room for another drink. And I said no, very politely and very firmly and walked away.”

She added: “I couldn’t believe that first of all I’d been propositioned in the way I had been, and I possibly could have knocked my chances of any future success in the party by having said ‘no’.

“Of course men do try it on, but this is a man with an almighty amount of power. At the time he held the purse strings for any winnable seat.”

Lib Dem activists are understood to be increasingly uncomfortable with Nick Clegg’s response

I couldn't believe I'd been propositioned in the way I had been

A woman identified as 'Susan'

The woman said the alleged victims resisted making a formal complaint because they were worried about being in the media spotlight.

She said: “We were all saying, we really don’t want this to go public. At one point, someone referred to us as ‘Rennard’s red-hot babes’.”

Susan also admitted the scandal had been devastating for the party.

She said: “It has rocked the party to the core. It’s been like telling the party faithful that Santa Claus isn’t real.”

A clearly angry Mr Clegg told Sky News yesterday: “I understand there are many people who appear to want to act as self-appointed detectives trying to piece together events that happened, but the only way that we are going to get to the truth is by allowing the two investigations that I established immediately after the Channel 4 broadcast to do their job.

“And in the meantime I cannot provide a running commentary on every shred of speculation about events which happened many years ago.”

A statement released by on behalf of Lord Rennard said: “Lord Rennard refutes these allegations.

“He would reiterate that in 27 years of working for the Liberal Democrats he received no complaint or allegation about his behaviour.”